In the Midnight Hour
by lostinwriting23
Summary: "He keeps an air mattress tucked under her bed for times likes this. They haven't slept in different room since they got her back but some nights are better than other."


_**Hey there guys! So, this one has kinda been percolating since the finale (BECAUSE HOW DARE THEY PUT HER IN A ROCK) and I just now got around to writing it out. I didn't really go into what the rock does because I honestly don't even have a guess at what it does. In mine, it just kind of holds Jemma captive but wants Skye. But. I don't know.**_

 _ **Anyway.**_

 _ **Please let me know what you think and I hope you enjoy it!**_

 _ **Have an awesome day,**_

 _ **M:)  
**_

_**I'm just writing for fun, plain and simple. Just borrowing Whedon's beautiful characters.**_

XXX

He keeps an air mattress tucked under her bed for times likes this. They haven't slept in different room since they got her back but some nights are better than other. Nightmares are nothing new to either of them, have plagued them each for longer than either is willing to admit but these are different.

"Jemma," he murmurs, trying to keep his voice and heart rate steady as he watches her thrash and cry, her twitching extremities jabbing into the soft parts of his body. He's seen it before, too many times to count in the six days he's had but each time it seems to scoop out his insides, leaving a raw, aching cavity behind, "Jem, wake up, you're safe. I'm here. Wake up."

Her amber eyes fly open and she chokes on a sob, skittering away from him until she hits the wall. With a cry of surprise she rolls away, kicking off the blankets and sheets as she goes. She whimpers, shaking bad enough to aggravate the crack in her collar bone and then she's doubled over, holding her right arm across her chest, cradled by the left with her forehead to her knees.

"Hey, hold on. It's okay." Fitz scrambles out of bed, reaching for the little orange bottle. It takes him longer than he'd like, his bad hand weak and trembling from the stress but, eventually he gets it open and shakes a single small white pill into his hand. He returns to the bed, kneeling next to her, pressing the pill into one hand and a cool glass of water into the other. She winces at the contact but takes both.

 _The rock then_. He thinks, stomach sinking as he reaches for the mattress while she gulps down the rest of the glass of water. When he looks up, she's curled into herself again, right arm still pressed across her chest, fingers hooked over her opposite shoulder to take off some of the weight, empty glass trembling in her left hand.

He moves deliberately, bigger than he normally would but even so, she jumps and shrinks away some as he takes the glass out of her hand and drags all the bed coverings onto the floor with him. She can't stand being touched on nights like this, the weight of her pajamas just about all she can handle coming in contact with her bare skin. He tries not to take it personally, was the one to suggest the air mattress, but even still, something in it stings. Not that she needs to be left alone, he completely understands that, but that he can't do anything, has to sit idly by and let her battle it out herself, suffer. It's almost more than he can take.

Sighing and setting the glass back on the end table, he turns to her and starts spreading the sheets and blankets over his bed, "D'you want to talk about it?"

She shakes her head. They leave a couple little lamps on usually, something he couldn't stand before, but is thankful for now because it means he can see her face, more easily gauge how to handle each night.

"Alright. That's fine."

"I'm sorry," She croaks, taking her cue from him as he lay down, resting on her back now.

"Jemma Simmons, don't you dare apologize." he sits up enough to look her in the eye, "None of this is your fault. I just wish there was more I could do to help-"

"No, no." her left arm flops over the lip of the bed, the drugs beginning to take their effect, relieving her pain and making her drowsy. Knowing what she wants, he reaches up and just barely links their fingers. Her hand twitches against it before squeezing gently, "You do help, Fitz. I hate that you're on the floor again and I-"

"I'd sleep on the floor forever if it helped you feel better," he mumbles, running his thumb twice over the tips of her fingers. He winces as he catches on her ragged and cracked nails, utterly destroyed from her scrabbling against the cement floor as she was dragged backwards. He shook himself and just barely pressed his lips to her hand in the wake of his thumb.

"Hopefully soon you won't have to anymore." There's regret, anger, guilt, all leeching out of her tone but also something softer, sweeter. It's a strange dichotomy that Fitz can't quite decipher in his drowsy state.

"Sleep, Jem. I'm right here." He goes to pull his had away, leave her to the space she needs but her fingers synch around his, refusing to loosen.

"Please, just..."

"Anything." he whispers, shifting closer and switching hands so he can lay on his side facing the bed and keep holding her hand on top of it.

"Thank you," Her voice floats down, thick with sleep and emotions.

He wants to say more but from the way her fingers go slightly slack around his, he knows she's asleep.

XXX

Getting her back had been an ordeal in itself. When she hadn't turned up for their dinner (he'd come up with more options than strictly necessary but he had wanted it to be perfect) he wandered the base with a progressively stronger sinking feeling and cruel thoughts sneaking through the back of his head. _She changed her mind. She didn't mean it. She doesn't want you; how could she_ ever _want you. It was because she felt bad for you. She could never love someone broken like you._

It quickly became evident, however, that something was very wrong. No one had seen her for hours and when he and Skye had finally gone back to the storage room where he'd left her, they found no Simmons and the door to the enclosure wide open. The bottom of his stomach dropped out and he hadn't even realized he was stumbling toward it until Skye banded her arms around his chest and physically dragged him back (between training and getting superpowers he really shouldn't have been surprised at how strong she was). She'd practically sat on him to make sure he didn't go near it as she pulled out her tablet to scrub over the surveillance footage.

"Shit." She muttered, "Fitz. Don't look."

"Skye, no-" He turned his head just as the rock in the video shifted, becoming its weird liquid state before it burst out the door, knocking Simmons back, sloshing out the sides and racing across the floor to snake around her. Her scream was cut off as the mercury-like substance closed over her head and retreated back into the box, reforming into its original monolith state and taking her with it.

"No." he could not accept this. He couldn't breathe. This wasn't fair.

He didn't remember much after that. The next week was a foggy blur of sitting in the storage room (Skye had used her powers to shut and latch the door in a true show of control. Especially given that she could barely see through her tears) tearing through all the data Jemma had compiled thus far. It wasn't much. She was beyond brilliant and worked fast but they'd only really had it for a day and a half before...

Skye barely left his side, scouring the internet and then, when that failed, drilling Lincoln for information about the stone but he was almost as in the dark as they were. The only people that knew about it, he said, were Jaiying and Gordon, both of whom were gone (Skye had collapsed in on herself at the mention of her mother. Vaguely, Fitz thought about how bad a friend he was being for not asking about how Skye was doing, basically losing both her parents at once. But then. Skye would have brushed it off, directing his attention back to Jemma, which she knew he wouldn't resist. Simmons had always been good at talking things out with the hacker. When she got back...). That conversation had resulted in Lincoln spending the rest of his time in the storage room with them, shoulder pressed tightly against Skye's.

Sleep became a luxury that everyone took advantage of even less than before, if that was even possible. Coulson went into overdrive, reaching out to any resource that could have an inkling of what the rock was; Mack paced like a caged animal, barking orders at other agents under his supervision about safety measures and the like. May was back within four hours of the incident (having been called by Skye, whose voice had shaken and cracked horribly. May's chest ached in response, accompanying her swooping stomach at the news of Jemma's disappearance, and she murmured quietly back to the girl. Andrew had turned around their car before she was even off the phone.) chucking her duffle bag into the training room before joining them in the storage room. She thought no one noticed the way Skye clung to the older agent's hand, but Fitz did and it left him with a strange, empty sensation that he didn't have the time or energy to dissect.

He passed medical one day, almost a week after Simmons had been taken, to hear Bobbi and Hunter yelling at one another. She wanted to be there with the rest of them, trying to find Simmons, but her injuries were nowhere near healed enough for her to be moved, which Hunter was reminding her of, loudly and belligerently.

"Bobbi." Fitz ducked into the room, the two agents falling silent at the sight of him. She still looked bad, face a mishmash of half healed cuts and fading bruises, right hand still wrapped in bandages from the tips of her fingers to her wrist, a traction sling set up for the knee that had been almost crushed and another sling keeping her whole left arm aloft, taking pressure off the bullet wound.

"Hey Fitz," She murmured, her voice taking on the quality it usually did when she talked to Jemma and somehow... somehow that made him feel closer to his partner than he had since, "What's-"

"Jemma would want you to stay here. I can hear her in my head, yelling at me about how if you leave it'll mess up your recovery time and could cause further injury and..." The phantom of his hallucination from almost a year ago brushing her fingers reverently across his cheek but he shook his head against her and looked up at Bobbi, "Just. Please. I'll tell you when I know something but-"

The blonde agent gave him a gentle, split lipped smile, "Okay. I... yeah okay. But if I can do anything-"

"Yeah, I'll let you know, yeah." He turned to leave but stopped when Hunter put a hand on his shoulder.

"We're going to get her out, mate. No one's going to stop until we do."

Fitz nodded slowly and then let Hunter fingers slide off his shoulder as he went back to his post.

Days dragged on into weeks without her before they had any sort of break through. He'd been sitting, dazedly staring at the stupid bloody thing, wondering if he could just try to reach in and grab her before the door slammed open and Skye skidded in, dragging Lincoln by the hand.

"Skye, what-"

"Shhh." She held up a finger in his direction and crossed to the middle of the room, dropping Lincoln's hand and centering herself in front of the box before closing her eye.

Fitz glanced at Lincoln, but his eyes were glued to Skye, who was steadying her breathing and slowly reaching out a hand in the direction of the rock.

There was silence for what felt like an age. He and Lincoln didn't dare move, barely breathing as they observed her until-

"Hah!" The two men leapt as she screeched, bouncing off the walls practically as she crowed, "She's in there! I can feel her heartbeat! She's in there, alive."

She whipped around to look at Fitz, tears welling in her eye.

"What?"

"Fitz," She flitted over to him, seemingly torn between throwing her arms around him and grabbing his hands before settling to grab his face in her hands, "She's alive."

A tear slipped down her face and Fitz dragged her in for a hug, breathing easier than he had in weeks. He didn't realize the very real fear that she was dead, that when they figured out how to free her, they'd be pulling out her corpse, had gripped him until Skye had told him she wasn't.

"You're brilliant." He murmured, shaking and pulling back.

She snorted, mopping her cheeks with a sleeve, "Hardly. If I was really brilliant, I'd have thought of this ages ago."

"Well you thought of it now." Lincoln replied, "What's the plan now?"

Her gaze shifted between them, "Well... I mean, theoretically, I should be able to get her out, right?"

"Skye-"

"No, hear me out," She held up a hand to her inhuman friend (and promptly apologized for accidentally shoving him back several paces), "If I can concentrate on her heartbeat, her pulse throughout her body I should be able to use it to pull her out. Ya know with," She wiggled her fingers and shrugged, "I mean, I've done weirder things, right?"

"Skye," Lincoln dropped his head and scrubbing his hands over his face, "You've made incredible progress lately but this is... delicate. If you pull to hard or lose control, even for a second, or the rock reacts and tries to keep a hold of her..." He dropped his voice and glanced at Fitz, "There's... there's a chance you could pull her heart out of her chest."

Skye turned slightly green and Fitz tried to force the very graphic image of a dripping heart flying out of the rock, smashing though the glass enclosure and landing wetly in Skye's outstretched palm, leaving a trail of deep red blood splotches behind it, out of his mind but every time he blinked the image refreshed and he had to focus on the sound of Skye's voice to steady him. _She's alive._

"No," She shook Lincoln's hand off her shoulder, "I can do this. I know I can. I'll use the rock too, try to... ya know pull it apart, I don't know but... Her heartbeat isn't strong, we probably don't have much more time and..." She wrung her hands together, and then threw them out to the sides in exasperation, voice cracking again, "It's Simmons. I know I can do this."

Her companion blew out a heavy sigh, turning, "Fitz?"

"If Skye says she can do it, she can do it."

She turned to him, gratitude welling in her eyes, "I can. I'm getting her out today." Skye hung on his hand and they both turned to the monolith which was gently shifting, keeping its form but swirling around itself, "You hear that, Simmons? Today. I promise." 

XXX

Within an hour, the storage room was swarming with agents, all fitted in biohazard suits. Mack was marking out a line of "minimum safe distance" which no one, save essential personnel (Skye, Fitz, Coulson, May, himself and the med team on standby) was allowed to cross.

"You're sure about this, Tremors?" Mack claps a mammoth hand on her shoulder, buckling her knees slightly, but never once taking his eyes off the now violently shifting rock.

"Sure as I've been about anything lately."

"Guess that'll have to be good enough."

Fitz felt like his stomach was trying to claw its way out through the front of his body, roiling and curling around itself as he watched Skye take her position in front of the enclosure, May's gloved hand falling from hers, finger by finger.

There was absolute, painful silence in the room as Skye, from a distance, popped the air seal around the rock with ease and the door swung open wide. Everyone drew back except Fitz, who took two tottering steps and ended up hovering at Skye's back.

"Fitz." She grunted, not un-gently and quiet enough that he was the only one to hear her "As shocking as this might be, having you floating next to my shoulder is not going to make this easier."

He didn't respond, just backed up sheepishly, too afraid that if he opened his mouth, he'd throw up in his suit.

What followed was something that Fitz never wanted to see or experience again as long as he lived. Even more than that, the idea of Simmons being a part of it, made him want to curl himself around her and never let her out of his sight again.

For a while things went smoothly. Slowly, yes, but smoothly. The only noise in the room was Skye's quiet controlled breathing, her outstretched fingers curling slightly as tension spilled through her body. Bit by bit, Jemma's body appeared from within the rock, sliding around her form like syrup, left arm and leg first then slowly her torso and lolling head.

His fingers twitched harshly in their thick white gloves and his breath snagged in his chest. Her usually full, rosy cheeks were now chalky and sunken against the bones of her face. Her once well fitting blouse hung disproportionately off her frame and her hair had grown out past her shoulder blades, now dull and limp. She was scarily still, the only movement, the slight up and down of her sunken chest as she was slowly dragged from the stone.

"Come on, Jemma," He hummed quietly, unable to take his eyes off her.

And that was when everyone started to go terribly wrong.

The rock hummed and fully solidified, locking the upper right portion of her chest and all of her arm deep within its depths, the only parts Skye hadn't managed to extract. Skye's brows furrowed and her feet skittered against the cement floor.

"What's happening?" Coulson barked, striding forward purposefully but stopping when Skye shook her head sharply.

"I don't know. It's fighting back now. It's trying to pull her back in, I don't know-"

"Skye you can't let it." Fitz babbled, terror and panic surging painfully against his ribcage and he couldn't stop his mouth, "You can't let it. Skye. Skye no. It can't have her. You have to get her out Skye. It can't take her-"

"I know, Fitz." Skye snarled, throwing her hands forward harder, "I know. I'm trying. You're not going to win this easily." The last part was directed at the rock, which was now droning at such a frequency and decibel level that most of the agents had shrunk back against the furthest wall, hands clamped tightly over their ears.

"I don't know what happened. It was letting me take her and suddenly-" Skye gave a sharp tug and Jemma's eyes flew open, her shriek of pain almost drowning out the noise of the rock.

"Shit," Skye swore as her booted feet skidded against the floor, fighting the draw that the rock seemed to be enacting her, "Simmons, hold on, I'm sorry." She threw her second hand up, directed at the monolith. It shuddered, the humming lessening somewhat before surging upward in decibels again, pulling Skye harder.

Simmons eyes were rolling, hanging suspended between the rock and Skye, completely limp. Fitz could hear other noises, people rushing at his back but he was keeping pace with his Inhuman friend as she was slowly dragged in.

"Fitz," She grunted, panting with the combined effort of fighting the rock's pull and keeping Simmons out, "I'm about to do something potentially really stupid, so I need you to shut the enclosure when I say to, okay?"

"Skye, what-" A million scenarios flicked through his mind, each more terrifying than the last.

"Just trust me, okay?"

"If you get sucked into that thing, Simmons will never forgive either of us." he murmured, bad hand trembling as he imagined it.

"Which is why I will be trying very hard not to let that happen." She chuckled, darkly, sweat beginning to collect on her forehead "So are you gonna listen to me or not?"

He couldn't do much more than nod, but she saw and, with a forced smile, she let herself be dragged forward more harshly.

There was an outcry behind them, May and Coulson and probably Lincoln, but Fitz didn't see. He had broken into a sprint to get ahead of them. Before him, the rock returned to its liquid form, loosing Simmons from its grip and sending her crashing listlessly to the concrete floor. Every atom in his body wanted to go to her, cradle her in his arms, check for any injuries but Skye was less than a meter away, eyes wide in fear and determination.

"Fitz," She shrieked, pushing with all her might against the vibrations of the rock. His shoulder slammed into the glass door. It swung on its hinges violently, gathering enough momentum to stop the Kree artifact as it surged forward to pounce on Skye and latching solidly.

With a final high pitched hum of what could only be rage, the rock reformed and all was still and quiet. Skye dropped to the floor right in front of the enclosure, body heaving before she tipped over sideways, shaking harder than he'd seen since she was let out of quarantine.

Fitz slid on his knees, landing next to his partner, "Simmons, Jemma, look at me," his gloved fingers caught the back of her neck, pulling her around gently to look at him.

"Fitz," Skye gasped, teeth chattering, "Is she-"

"Fitz." The quiet whimper drew both of their eyes down. Simmons had opened her eyes, trembling left hand coming up to touch the visor covering his face, "What..." Her eyes gained a tiny bit of clarity and she tried to move on her own, groaning in obvious pain as her right side shifted.

"Don't move." Fitz hummed, catching her hand and pressing it to his chest.

"Skye," she managed, panic leeching through her delirium, "Where?"

"I'm here, I'm here." Skye reached out her right hand and Fitz placed Simmons' hand in it. Both girls latched onto each other immediately.

"Stupid." Simmons' voice was fading in and out but everyone caught that, "Very stupid. Both of you."

"What did you expect?" She responded, voice cracking around the tears already coursing down her cheeks, "Didn't have you around to remind us."

Jemma's lips twitched, squeezing her friend's fingers before her eyes shifted slowly up to Fitz's again, "Leo, I'm so sorry. I'm-" a sob broke out of her throat and her amber eye glittered.

"Shhh, hey it's... it's okay." His eyes were wet and he didn't care because she was alive and looking at him like... like he wasn't sure what but it made his heart swell and breathing difficult but in the good way.

XXX

Fitz pulls himself out of the darker days to watch her breathe slowly on the bed nexto to him. The following days had been hard but in a different way. A fractured collar bone, bruises over most of her body, malnutrition, dehydration, a sprained ankle, and a whole host of emotional traumas, a majority of which she had refused to talk about with anybody but Andrew, who stayed around to help her and Skye.

Sighing, he leans forward to brush his lips against the inside of her wrist, thin blue veins spider webbing up her thin, still-too-pale arms, "Sleep well."

He lays down, fingers still woven through hers up on the bed (he's sure he'll wake up with a numb arm in the morning but it's worth it) and is only asleep for what feels like a minute before he is awoken. Glancing around blearily, he catches sight of the clock. Only three hours have passed.

He's about to sit up to see what's making his mattress shift when the light apple scent of Jemma's shampoo washes over him and the girl in question molds herself against his side, nuzzling her face against his chest.

"Jemma," He hums sleepily, "This can't be good for your arm."

She huffs harshly against his neck, all warm breath and tickling eyelashes. Slowly and carefully she extracts her right arm from between them before propping it across his torso, "Better?"

"If positions were reversed, you'd be yelling at me about inconsistent sleeping surfaces and how healing bone need stability if they're going to set properly.

"Shut up, Fitz, I'm the doctor here."

"I have a PhD too," He reminds her jokingly, nuzzling his face in her hair.

"Who has the _medical_ degree? Or. Well closest equivalent?" she grunts, "Besides, your chest is sufficiently stable."

"Well let's get back in the actual bed at least, that might be a little better for-" He starts to sit up but is stopped by her left hand knotted in the back of his shirt, tugging him back down.

"No, too comfy. Too sleepy." She cranes her neck up and brushes a kiss across his jaw, and even though they've kissed before (a lot. They've kissed a lot. As soon as she'd woken up in the medical bay for the first time after being released from quarantine, they'd had a lengthy, emotional talk that had ended in her dragging him down to her for an even lengthier, more impassioned kiss), this, sleepy, pliable Jemma crawling into a bed on the floor with him, soft lips drifting up to press lightly against the spot between his jaw and the bottom of his ear, does something wonderfully funny to his stomach, "One night won't do anything irreparable."

He turns his head, catches her mouth with his, a lazy, chaste kiss.

"Fine," he murmurs against her lips.

She smiles at him gently before snuggling back down, curling her right hand around his bicep. His arm hooks around her body, slowly skating his fingers over her back and she goes completely relaxed against him, humming her contentment. He buries his nose in hair, sighs back and easily drifts back to sleep.


End file.
